Carrie Pallardy, Contributing ReporterApril 21, 20258 Min Readtdbp via Alamy Stock PhotoWe are looking far afield for the future of data centers: in deserts, under the sea, and of course, in space. Data centers in strange places are steadily moving from the realm of imagination to reality. Lonestar Data Holdings, for one, recently achieved milestones in testing its commercial lunar data center in orbit.  How does Lonestar’s most recent mission push us forward on the path to commercial data centers around and on the Moon? What are the unique challenges that must be solved for launching and maintaining these data centers? As more governments and enterprises look to space, what lies ahead for competition and cooperation on the Moon and beyond?  The Mission  On Feb. 26, Lonestar launched its Freedom data center payload onboard the Athena Lunar Lander, a commercial Moon lander sent by American space exploration company Intuitive Machines.  The landing did not go exactly as planned. The system landed on its side and powered down days earlier than anticipated, CNN reports. But Lonestar achieved several testing milestones prior to the landing. The company’s technology demonstrated its ability to operate in the harsh environment of space. Lonestar was able to test its data storage capabilities and execute edge processing functions.   Related:Lunar Opportunities and Challenges Lunar data centers offer a number of advantages over their terrestrial counterparts. Ready access to solar power and natural cooling are useful, and their remote location is key to their appeal.  “Throw in all the problems with climate change, natural disasters, human error, wars, nation states going after immutable data that's held in data centers,” says Chris Stott, CEO of Lonestar. Data center customers want to put their data somewhere that is secure, accessible, and in compliance with data sovereignty laws. And space beckons.  While the promise of lunar data centers as a core piece of resiliency and disaster recovery strategy is clear, there is a lot of work being poured into making them a tangible, commercial option.  Cost is an obvious hurdle for any space-based project. But given the appetite for space exploration and commercialization, there is certainly money to be found. Lonestar raised $5 million in seed funding in 2023, and the company is working on finishing its Series A funding, according to Stott.  Other companies with celestial data center ambitions are attracting millions, too. Starcloud, previously Lumen Orbit, has raised more than $20 million, according to GeekWire. Starcloud is focused on space-based data centers not on the Moon but in low Earth orbit.  Related:Companies need that kind of funding because it is expensive to launch these data centers and to design them. A lunar data center isn’t going to look like one you would see on Earth.  “When you take something into space, you have to redesign everything,” Stott acknowledges.  The data center needs to operate in the vacuum of space. It needs to be built with space-qualified material; it must meet low outgassing criteria. It needs to be able to operate in an environment of extremes.  On the lunar surface, a data center would be faced with two weeks of day and two weeks of night.  “You’ve got 250 degrees Celsius in the sun,” says Stott. “But when it gets to lunar night it goes … instantly to minus 200 degree Celsius. It gets really cold. So cold it fractures silicone.” Lonestar is focusing its near-term efforts on placing its data centers at Lagrange points, specific spots between the Earth and Moon in which objects remain stable. With this approach, the data center will only experience four hours of shade every 90 days, and it will have batteries to power it during that time, Stott explains.  “That changed everything for us because it means we don't have to wait for a ride to the Moon. We don't have to use a lunar lander. We can solve the day-night issue,” he adds. Related:Terrestrial data centers have white space and grey space. The former includes the servers and racks, while the latter supports those: communication, cooling, power. The same concept applies to space-based data centers, but the white space is referred to as a payload. “It's the load that pays … whether it be a camera or whether it be an astronaut or whether it be a data center,” says Stott. “Then our gray space: power, thermal and communications. It’s the satellite, it's the solar panels, the batteries for power, and satellite antennas for communications.” When something in a data center fails or breaks in a terrestrial data center, it is a relatively simple matter to have someone walk in the door and fix it. Those boots on the ground aren’t exactly a readily available option for lunar data centers.  Gregory Ratcliff is chief innovation officer at Vertiv, a company that provides critical infrastructure solutions, including data centers. Vertiv is not directly involved in lunar data center projects, but it has plenty of experience here on Earth.  Ratcliff tells InformationWeek, “Fault tolerance is really going to matter. [You’ll] have a redundancy of systems, redundancy of those servers and in some cases, you might just let it fail until you do the upgrade and work around it, which is a little different than we do in modern data centers on Earth.”   And then, of course, there are the logistical demands of arranging to launch anything into space. “They always say the hardest thing about getting to space is getting permission,” says Stott.  A Commercial Offering Caddis Cloud Solutions, an advisory firm that specializes in data center development, is working with Lonestar. “We're really the … organization helping vet customers, understand the technical solutions that customers are looking for, presenting those solutions, helping them build out the physical infrastructure on ground,” Caddis Cloud Solutions CEO Scott Jarnagin tells InformationWeek.  Lonestar’s lunar data center aims to provide resiliency as a service and disaster recovery and edge processing services. And already there are government and enterprise customers on board. It is working with the state of Florida to provide data storage, for example. On the edge processing side, Lonestar counts Vint Cerf, one of the trailblazers behind the architecture of internet, among its customers.  Lonestar is also working with other data center operators. “They can provide the solutions to their customers as an extension of disaster recovery services,” Jarnigan explains.  Lonestar is planning to launch six data storage spacecrafts between 2027 and 2030. They will orbit the Moon at the Lunar L1 Lagrange Point.  “Each one carrying multi petabytes worth of storage and doing a ton of edge processing as well. Think of it like a smart device up in orbit around the moon,” says Stott. “And they are precursors to what we'll put in the moon later on.” It is booking capacity for those upcoming missions.  While Lonestar is gearing up for those next missions, it is not alone in the world of space-based data centers. Plenty of companies, like Starcloud, are working on low Earth orbit data centers. Stott considers Lonestar to be a “different flavor” of space-based data center.  “We are a very niche, premium, high-latency, high-security application. We don't want to be close to the planet. We want to be far enough away that we can still operate safely and have line of sight communications without any of the other complications that come with that,” he says.  The Future of Data Centers While Lonestar is starting its commercial data centers in lunar orbit, it still plans to return to the surface of the Moon.  And, of course, there is plenty of interest focused on launching a plethora of lunar technology. NASA’s Artemis program is focused on establishing long-term presence on the Moon. The Lunar Surface Technology Research (LuSTR) program and Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative are driving the development of technologies to support Artemis missions to the Moon, as well as exploration on Mars.  As Lonestar and other space-based data center initiatives advance, what of terrestrial data centers?  Ratcliff anticipates that advances made in lunar data centers will be useful here on Earth as well. “It'll feed backwards … power routing, sensor optimization, digital twins,” he says. “So, this is going to push us to be better both on Earth and on the Moon.” For now, the Moon feels almost like a blank slate. But as more and more public and private enterprises launch lunar satellites and establish technology on its surface, competition for real estate -- for data centers and otherwise -- will heat up.  While wealthy governments and enterprises will have a leg up in the competition, it isn’t going to be a complete free-for-all. Plenty of space law exists today. Any initiative that goes to the Moon is subject to the laws of its country of origin. “If you're an American company and you're flying in space, American law applies to you. You don't get to skip anything,” says Stott.  Even within the bounds of law, there is an element of racing. Companies and countries want to reap the benefits of lunar initiatives. “Back in the 60s, it was flags and footprints. Today, it's resources and revenue,” says Stott. “When we're looking at the Moon, it is now just part of Earth’s economics sphere. It's just another place we go to do business.” But there is also a history of collaboration in space. “If you think back just not too long ago, the ISS [International Space Station] was built by a whole bunch of different countries … it was completely outside of politics and seems to work pretty well,” Ratcliff points out.  The groups developing and launching lunar technology will have to figure out how to do so without compromising safety, and that will require at least some level of cooperation with one another.  Success on the Moon is likely just the beginning for the data center industry. “One day we will have Martian data centers. We will have Jovian based data centers. Anywhere that humanity goes, we now take two things with us: the law and data,” says Stott.  In all likelihood, we will have something else with us: cybercriminals. Space may be far more remote than any corner we could find here on Earth, but that doesn’t mean threat actors won’t seek and find vulnerabilities that enable cyberattacks in space .  “We are a hedge against terrestrial problems, but, of course, we have to stay one step ahead in terms of cybersecurity,” Stott recognizes. About the AuthorCarrie PallardyContributing ReporterCarrie Pallardy is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. She writes and edits in a variety of industries including cybersecurity, healthcare, and personal finance.See more from Carrie PallardyReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

There’s nothing the internet loves more than turning a large group of subjective opinions into something that looks like a consensus. Take a bunch of reviews, assign each a numerical value, average it out, and boom — suddenly art is now math.Of course, not even the most widely beloved movie in history is widely beloved by every single person on the planet. Somewhere out there is a cinephile who hates The Godfather. And on the flip side of the equation, just because nine people agree that a film is a piece of junk, that does not mean there isn’t a tenth person who thinks that same movie is actually pretty good.Hello, I am that tenth person.  And today, I’m offering my picks for the ten most underrated films of the last ten years. In terms of methodology, I decided to determine how a film was “rated” by looking at its score on the movie social media app Letterboxd. Every title on that site is rated on a five-star scale; anything over a 3.0 would be considered “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes.That would make anything under that mark “rotten,” or a mixed to negative response. The ten films below almost all fall into that category — but would all receive much higher and more positive ratings from me. That’s why I’m going to bat for them today here at ScreenCrush. If you missed any of them the first time around because you heard nothing but bad things about them, well, that is no longer true.The 10 Most Underrated Movies of the Last 10 Years (2015-2024)These recent movies deserve way more respect, and much bigger audiences.10 More Underrated Movies of the Last 10 Years: Avengement, Bad Trip, Blockers, Bridge of Spies, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Hit Man, MacGruber, Spotlight, The Walk.Get our free mobile appThe Most Underrated Disney Movies Of The Last 25 YearsNo one considers these Disney movies “classics” — but they should.

The Officials Management System (OMS) is seeking a part-time, contract full-stack developer to help with development efforts and provide Tier 2/Tier 3 support to our front line customer support.Technology StackOne of the goals of this position will be to incrementally modernize the platform, and help bring modern tools into our stack.We are currently using:Frontend: Bootstrap, vanilla JavaScript & HTMLBackend: Visual Basic/ASP, SQLServer: Windows Server 2025Cloud: AWSDatabase: SQL Server, hosted on AWSAreas we are looking to improve upon include:JavaScript toolingModernization of the user interfaceUnit and Integration Testing Framework and Test CasesQualifications & RequirementsPrevious experience working with VB.net and ASP, in both front end and back end web development.Experience with basic management & administration of Windows Server 2025 and SQL Server in the AWS environmentYou have experience with the Microsoft stack.You can communicate effectively & fluently in English, both verbally and in writing.You can produce technical documentation, both within the code base, and also with writing stand-alone technical documentation.You can provide Tier 2 or Tier 3 technical support when needed for technical issues that are initially handled by a front-line customer support representative.You have shipped at least one customer-facing product.You write unit tests and develop code that supports automated testing.You communicate clearly and are willing to give & receive critical feedback to improve the user experience.You stay up to date with the latest web development news and technologies.BonusExperience with C# (or conversion of VB to C#)Experience with UI and/or UX designOur Interview processOur interview process is designed to focus on your skills as a software engineer, and your ability to communicate clearly. You'll begin with an interview with a technical manager.Afterwards, you may be asked to complete a small code challenge, along with a technical design document.Working HoursThis is a part-time contract position. We expect the workload to be approximately 20 hours per week.At least half of your work time should be scheduled within Eastern time working hours of 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday.You need to reside in the Pacific, Mountain, Central, or Eastern time zones.This position is not eligible for work visa sponsorship.BenefitsUSD $40/hourFlexible scheduleFully remote position - you just need a laptop and reliable Internet access.

This year has been rough for climate technology: Companies have canceled, downsized, or shut down at least 16 large-scale projects worth $8 billion in total in the first quarter of 2025, according to a new report. That’s far more cancellations than have typically occurred in recent years, according to a new report from E2, a nonpartisan policy group. The trend is due to a variety of reasons, including drastically revised federal policies. In recent months, the White House has worked to claw back federal investments, including some of those promised under the Inflation Reduction Act. New tariffs on imported goods, including those from China (which dominates supply chains for batteries and other energy technologies), are also contributing to the precarious environment. And demand for some technologies, like EVs, is lagging behind expectations.  E2, which has been tracking new investments in manufacturing and large-scale energy projects, is now expanding its regular reports to include project cancellations, shutdowns, and downsizings as well.  From August 2022 to the end of 2024, 18 projects were canceled, closed, or downsized, according to E2’s data. The first three months of 2025 have already seen 16 projects canceled. “I wasn’t sure it was going to be this clear,” says Michael Timberlake, communications director of E2. “What you’re really seeing is that there’s a lot of market uncertainty.” Despite the big number, it is not comprehensive. The group only tracks large-scale investments, not smaller announcements that can be more difficult to follow. The list also leaves out projects that companies have paused. “The incredible uncertainty in the clean energy sector is leading to a lot of projects being canceled or downsized, or just slowed down,” says Jay Turner, a professor of environmental studies at Wellesley College. Turner leads a team that also tracks the supply chain for clean energy in the US in a database called the Big Green Machine. Some turnover is normal, and there have been a lot of projects announced since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022—so there are more in the pipeline to potentially be canceled, Turner says. So many battery and EV projects were announced that supply would have exceeded demand “even in a best-case scenario,” Turner says. So some of the project cancellations are a result of right-sizing, or getting supply and demand in sync. Other projects are still moving forward, with hundreds of manufacturing facilities under construction or operational. But it’s not as many as we’d see in a more stable policy landscape, Turner says. The cancellations include a factory in Georgia from Aspen Aerogels, which received a $670 million loan commitment from the US Department of Energy in October. The facility would have made materials that can help prevent or slow fires in battery packs. In a February earnings call, executives said the company plans to focus on an existing Rhode Island facility and projects in other countries, including China and Mexico. Aspen Aerogels didn’t respond to a request for further comment.  Hundreds of projects that have been announced in just the last few years are under construction or operational despite the wave of cancellations. But it is an early sign of growing uncertainty for climate technology.   “You’re seeing a business environment that’s just unsure what’s next and is hesitant to commit one way or another,” Timberlake says.

Clothing and accessories featuring a new commemorative logo designed by Hoodzpah are available for purchase on Amazon.com. By Mark Newbold Actor Sam Witwer sports a new ILM 50th t-shirt at Star Wars Celebration Japan (Credit: Wes Ellis). In a world of innovation, skill, and ingenuity, no company has shone as bright or lasted as long in its field as Industrial Light & Magic. First incorporated in May 1975, ILM has led the way in the realm of visual effects for half a century. This iconic brand is as much a marque of quality as “Music by John Williams,” “Conceptual Design by Ralph McQuarrie,” or “Directed by George Lucas.” To celebrate the 50th anniversary (a first for any visual effects company) Hoodzpah — the team behind the ILM logo redesigns in 2023 — were asked to adapt their work for a fresh new ILM 50th logo, which is featured in a line of new merchandise recently unveiled at Star Wars Celebration Japan and now available on Amazon.com. ILM.com had the opportunity to chat with the team about this exciting new project and how they decided on the tone for the 50th anniversary logo. “When you work with a storied company like ILM, there is a wealth of visual inspiration and history to reference,” explains the Hoodzpah team, “so the hard part is narrowing in on one vision when there are so many ways you could take it. We cast a wide net and tried many different directions before landing on this retro-modern celebration that feels quintessentially ILM.” ILM has an incredible history, not only with its groundbreaking work on-screen but also its branding, going back to the classic Michael Pangrazio-designed magician logo painted by Drew Struzan and through a variety of changes to today. Given that lineage, Hoozpah decided on the mix between the 2023 redesign and the ’70s-style piping in the new logo, a blend that marries ILM’s ’70s vintage with the modernity of the current logo. “With an anniversary logo, you’re trying to balance two things: celebrating the history and accomplishments and legacy, but also reminding folks that there’s always more horizon to conquer,” Hoodzpah says. “This is just the first 50 years, and there’s so much more to come. Since the execution of the primary logo icon feels modern and intrepid, we wanted to embrace a ’70s vibe from the early ILM days. It felt so right as a nod to where it all started.” In the world of marketing, there are numerous rules and tricks to designing a great logo that catches the eye and sits in the memory. With ILM and all the history that goes with it, there remains a need to find the right focus for such an emblem. “When a logo really resonates, it’s because it feels true to the brand,” notes the Hoodzpah team. “There are so many styles and means of execution, but the question should always be, ‘What feels right for this brand?’ People love to look at trademark logo books with hundreds of logo icons shown on a white page. It’s inspiring to see all the styles of execution. But we’re always left wondering, ‘What’s the context?’ It’s not about a logo looking good in isolation because one is rarely used that way. It’s about a logo feeling perfect in context. It was the same for this project. We tested the 50th anniversary logo in key applications and then used it in a suite of anniversary merch designs as well.” Collaboration is key in everything ILM does, from the core team pulling together on new projects to working hand-in-glove with vendors and creatives behind the films, TV shows, and immersive entertainment projects ILM works with. Given that, it was important for Hoodzpah to spitball ideas with the ILM team themselves because clearly they revel in the spirit of collaboration in the same way that ILM does. “There’s a reason we didn’t end up choosing fine arts as a career path, even though we really loved it,” Hoodzpah explains. “We like working within the limitations of a prompt and pushing and flexing boundaries to see how far we can take it. Design is a team sport. We all get together and try to push this idea up the field. When we work with ILM, we are keenly aware that everyone we work with is a creative powerhouse in their own right. We’d be fools not to tap into that ‘creative brain trust,’ as [director of PR and communications] Greg Grusby calls it, and gather as many ideas and as much feedback as we can to make this logo as true to the ILM legacy as possible. After all, the people of ILM make ILM what it is. It’s like, why would we want just one violin when we could work with a full symphony orchestra?” The work on the logo continued with the creation of distinct products now available in the new merchandise line. “Taking the logo and spinning it off into 50th anniversary merch was so much fun,” Hoodzpah says. “The ILM crew were so game to dream big and really have fun with it. Each piece leans into a different vein of the ILM personality. We have a retro ’70s poster of a magician conjuring new worlds, which is what ILMers do every day. We celebrated all the innovation and milestones ILM has accomplished over 50 years in an infographic T-shirt. We even made custom-scented candles to celebrate the different departments and locations over the years. Our favorite is the Model Shop candle which has notes of sawdust and cedar. There’s truly something for everyone.” With their work on the ILM logo, Hoozpah has become a key part of ILM’s identity and history, which makes the team proud. “Getting to work with a cultural icon like ILM once was incredible,” they conclude. “Being trusted by such talented creatives to work with them again was even better. It’s great to be able to pick up where we left off, having already become embedded with the team and learning so much about the brand in our last project. Working on the rebrand was one of those bucket list jobs you continually remind yourself, ‘Wow, we really got to be a part of that.’ It felt like getting the band back together for the sequel.”See the new ILM 50th anniversary merchandise now available at Amazon.com. — Mark Newbold has contributed to Star Wars Insider magazine since 2006, is a 4-time Star Wars Celebration stage host, avid podcaster, and the Editor-in-Chief of FanthaTracks.com. Online since 1996. You can find this Hoopy frood online @Prefect_Timing.

More homebuyers are opting for the lower introductory interest rates of adjustable-rate mortgages.

April 21, 20253 min readTo Reduce Dementia Risk, Treat High Blood PressureLowering blood pressure through medication can reduce someone's risk of developing dementiaBy Liz Szabo edited by Allison Parshall SDI Productions/Getty ImagesTreating high blood pressure for as little as four years can cut the risk of dementia by 15 percent, according to clinical a trial results published on Monday in Nature Medicine. In the investigation, intensive blood pressure reduction also lowered the risk of mild cognitive impairment, an early stage of memory loss in people who can still live independently, by 16 percent.Although research has long linked hypertension and dementia, the new study provides the strongest evidence yet that taking medications for the former actually reduces someone’s risk of developing the latter.“Our study shows that dementia is preventable,” says Jiang He, a physician who studies epidemiology, internal medicine and neurology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The researchers studied nearly 34,000 people with high blood pressure in rural Chinese villages. The team randomly assigned half of the villages to an intensive hypertension reduction program, and people in the other villages received their normal care. After four years, 4.6 percent of those who underwent intensive blood pressure control—the goal of which was to lower their blood pressure to less than 130/80 millimeters of mercury (mm HG)—were diagnosed with dementia compared with 5.4 percent in the group that received standard care. Because doctors treated people for only four years, it’s not known if controlling blood pressure for a longer period of time would further reduce the dementia risk.Those results provide “strong evidence” to support using antihypertensive medications to prevent dementia in people with high blood pressure, He said.Beth Abramson, who studies cardiac disease prevention and women's health at the University of Toronto, calls the results encouraging. Many people ignore their hypertension or fail to take medications as directed, even though the condition can cause heart attacks and strokes, says Abramson, who is co-chair of the American College of Cardiology Hypertension Workgroup and was not involved in the new study.In the U.S., 48 percent of adults have hypertension, defined as a blood pressure that is consistently at or above 130/80 mm HG.The hope of preventing dementia may motivate some people to take their blood pressure more seriously, says Mitchell S. V. Elkind, chief clinical science officer at the American Heart Association, who also wasn’t involved in the new study. Surveys show dementia is one of the diseases that Americans fear most.According to the World Health Organization, 57 million people worldwide had dementia in 2021. This number is expected to nearly double every 20 years, reaching 82 million in 2030 and 152 million in 2050, according to the nonprofit organization Alzheimer’s Disease International.The new findings resemble those from separate clinical trial research published in January in Neurology. That study treated people with hypertension for 3.3 years and followed them for a median of seven years. The investigation focused on lowering systolic blood pressure, the first number in a blood pressure reading, in older adults. Of the 4,200 people in the study who underwent cognitive assessment, the group that who decreased systolic blood pressure to less than 120 mm HG had a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment or probable dementia; these participants’ risk was lowered by 11 percent compared with people who decreased their systolic blood pressure to below 140 mm HG. The study didn’t find any difference in the risk of probable dementia alone—possibly because it was smaller than the new study in China, because dementia can take many years to develop or because the trial was stopped early thanks to its overwhelmingly positive results in preventing cardiovascular events.Scientists don’t know exactly how hypertension might contribute to dementia, says David Reboussin, a professor of biostatistics and data science at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and first author of the January Neurology study. But, he adds, “if there is anything going on with small vessels and their ability to get oxygen to the brain tissue, then brain tissue will suffer. It will atrophy and die.”

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here The gaming industry’s worst-kept secret, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, may finally release tomorrow after months of leaks, speculation and online rabble. Following leaked gameplay screenshots last week, Bethesda has finally confirmed the game’s existance with an announcement on social media. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion release date teased In a very short social media post, Bethesda officially confirmed the existance of the long-leaked Oblivion remaster. Bethesda revealed that the game will be officially shown off tomorrow on April 22, 2025 at 11:00 AM EST, 08:00 PT and 16:00 BST. While still not officially shown off by Bethesda Game Studios, fans have already discovered the official Steam Store page for the upcoming remaster. At the time of writing, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is set to take up 120GB of storage space on PC. This means that the game is around 26.6 times bigger than the original’s Game of the Year Edition. While the new remaster appears to take out the high saturation of the original, the existance of a return to Cyrodil is incredibly exciting. After all, Oblivion has some of the best quests in The Elder Scrolls franchise such as A Brush with Death, a quest where you have to go inside a painting to save a missing artist. Alongside the new remaster of the Elder Scrolls game, developer Virtuos is said to be remastering Fallout 3 for modern platforms in the exact same vein. While leakers claim we won’t see this new remaster for a while, the release will bring the entire game to life with an Unreal Engine 5 facelift. With a day to go until The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered releases, this should be a great release to tide us over until The Elder Scrolls VI finally releases. About the Author The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – Game of the Year Edition Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Genre(s): RPG 9 VideoGamer Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

What are the trending outdoor decor styles for 2025?This year is all about drawing inspiration from the indoors when furnishing an outdoor living space. “In general, people are just starting to apply the elements and best practices of indoor decor to outdoor,” says Adnan Anwar, the founder of Adnan Anwar Design. “Outdoor rugs are an amazing foundation that allows you to define seating areas.” Pedestals aren’t just for indoor spaces, either, the designer adds. “You can put sculptures or plants on them,” Anwar says, noting that they’re a nice way to add height to a patio.He also suggests prioritizing a curated yet collected look. “I’m expecting fewer and fewer matched outdoor furniture sets,” Anwar says. “Mismatching allows outdoor spaces to appear more collected and interesting.”What are some budget-friendly outdoor decor ideas?Going the secondhand route and completing DIY projects will help bring your outdoor patio to life without breaking the bank, Anwar notes. Another suggestion he shares is to display a mirror, either made of plastic or metal, or artwork outside. “Bare walls make an outdoor room feel so much less finished and inviting,” the designer says. Lastly, don’t forget your accent pieces. “Accessories such as potted plants, vases, stoneware dishes, candlesticks, and hurricanes can elevate your outdoor room so much, even if you’re not able to spend much on the outdoor furniture itself,” Anwar says. “Sculptural drink tables are another very affordable way to make your outdoor space more functional and stylish.”What materials are best to incorporate outdoors?Functionality is essential when thinking about outdoor materials. Anwar is partial to iron, wicker, coated aluminum, and teak, and also appreciates ceramic and concrete. Last but not least, he suggests weaving greenery into any outdoor space. “You need something living, even if it’s low-maintenance,” the designer says.

SOON Attention all Adoring Fans: an Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered reveal stream has been announced by Bethesda, and you can watch it here "All will be revealed...." Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on April 21, 2025 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has finally been acknowledged by Bethesda itself. The long-rumoured remaster of the Elder Scrolls game with the most loveable potato-faced weirdos looks set to be revealed and potentially arrive during a reveal stream that's now penned in for tomorrow, April 22. This was a complete surprise. None of us knew it was coming. It's not like rumours about it started to surface all the way back in 2023. Oh, and it's also not like this Oblivion remaster leaked last week or had the official Xbox support account giving out a release date. Watch on YouTube Anyway, all of that aside, Bethesda's now announced a reveal stream for the remaster that's set for April 22. You'll be able to watch it here via the video above when it kicks off at 4PM BST, which is 11AM ET, 8AM PT, and 5PM CEST. Given all the rumours, there seems a damn good chance of the game itself being shadow-dropped as part of or during this stream, which Bethesda's cheekily entitled 'All will be revealed....'. So, there you go. We'll just have to see how everyone feels about the tweaks Virtuos Games and Bethesda have made to 2006's foremost spooky door closing simulator that also happened to get the best Elder Scrolls DLC so far. Yes, that's a hill I'll die on. Shivering Isles FTW. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. It's ok though. If you don't like the remaster, the original game is still right there for you to fire back up, in all of its wonderfully weird glory. Plus, for PC folks, there's massive modding project Skyblivion, which is still on track to offer its own take on Oblivion. "Luckily this thing was all about passion from the start and it still is," the mod's project lead told us right after the official remaster leaked, "I've gotten more out of this than I ever imagined, friends, experience and it made me realize I wanted to work in the gaming industry which I ended up doing." Will you be playing the Oblivion remaster 24/7 like it's 2006 again? Let us know below!